Review: All Fall Down

All Fall Down
Author: Ally Carter
Publication Date: February 5th 2015        
Publisher: Orchard Books
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

Grace can best be described as a daredevil, an Army brat, and a rebel. She is also the only granddaughter of perhaps the most powerful ambassador in the world and Grace has spent every summer of her childhood running across the roofs of Embassy Row.

Now, at age sixteen, she's come back to stay - in order to solve the mystery of her mother's death. In the process, she uncovers an international conspiracy of unsettling proportions, and must choose her friends and watch her foes carefully if she and the world are to be saved

Ally Carter's done it again. Seriously. Can she do no wrong? The answer to that, obviously, is no. She cannot do no wrong because she always seems to create a story and a set of characters that are hilarious and relatable yet serious and kind of untouchable. She creates characters that in any other, would make you hate the character, but you'll instantly love and suck you in, because they are fleshed out. They are each their own and balanced. All Fall Down are not short on those characters, though this is my little glitch and why it was almost perfect for me instead of perfect. Some of the secondary characters felt a little left out. I wanted to get to know them more than we did, and that is literally my only complaint. Which, when you think about it, is pretty good since this is book one, we'll have time to get into the secondary cast more. I loved Grace though, she made my very sarcastic heart very happy. She's a little, uhm, shall we say, unstable? Yup. She's a little unstable because of people constantly telling her she is unstable over how she saw her mother die. The 'official' story versus Grace's story, but since she was thirteen when it happened, the adults like to tell her she's crazy.

Review: The Fire Sermon

The Fire Sermon
Author: Francesca Haig
Publication Date: February 23rd 2015             
Publisher: HarperVoyager   
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~ 

When Zach and I were born our parents must have counted and recounted: limbs, fingers, toes. We were perfect. They would have been disbelieving: nobody dodged the split between Alpha and Omega.
Nobody.
They were born together and they will die together.
One strong Alpha twin and one mutated Omega; the only thing they share is the moment of their death.
The Omegas live in segregation, cast out by their families as soon as their mutation becomes clear. Forced to live apart, they are ruthlessly oppressed by their Alpha counterparts.
The Alphas are the elite. Once their weaker twin has been cast aside, they're free to live in privilege and safety, their Omega twin far from their thoughts.
Cass and Zach are both perfect on the outside: no missing limbs, no visible Omega mutation. But Cass has a secret: one that Zach will stop at nothing to expose.
The potential to change the world lies in both their hands. One will have to defeat the other to see their vision of the future come to pass, but if they're not careful both will die in the struggle for power.  

I will not comment on the whole The Hunger Games meets ______(insert whatever other popular book series  that may or may not relate to this actual book, here).  I will not. You could say it has an essence of it, barely, but when you come down to it, no. You're not in districts, yes, you're separated in terms of 'class' which, is only two forms of it. Alpha or Omega. The Omega lands are not that bad either, not like District 12,  I finished reading Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta before starting this, and even that is more Hunger Games than this.  

Giveaway: Win One of Three Ally Carter Prizes!

To celebrate Ally Carter's newest release, All Fall Down, Hachette Children's have teamed up with the brand Miss Sporty, and you can get a free mascara when you buy All Fall Down.

Giveaway!

To also celebrate the gorgeous newly jacketed releases of the Gallagher Girls series, the lovely PR team at Hachette Children's are offering up to my UK followers, three sets of the following prize packs.

Three of you can win:

(1) Newly jacketed Gallagher Girls novel

(1) piece of Miss Sporty make-up

Disclaimer: (please bear in mind that the items you receive may different from the actual prize

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

The Darkest Part of the Forest
Author: Holly Black
Publication Date: February 5th 2015        
Publisher: Indigo
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

First things first The Darkest Part of the Forest is completely charming and holy crap, I ship this book. I don't know where it changed for me, from thinking a three to four, that's not a full blown five. It's my first Holly Black, so maybe it's the writing, the enchanting feel, the characters, the story itself, or the story within a story, or the magical way everything just is. I'll tell you one thing, I'm not a lover of Fae books, I've tried a few of them but they're not my thing as such. So it takes a lot, and I mean a lot for me to get into it, and I got sucked in, so you win, book. You win.

Review: Playlist for the Dead

Playlist for the Dead
Author: Michelle Falkoff
Publication Date: January 27th 2015        
Publisher: HarperTeen
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~ 

 

A teenage boy tries to understand his best friend's suicide by listening to the playlist of songs he left behind in this smart, voice-driven debut novel.

Here's what Sam knows: There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, his best friend, Hayden, was dead. And all he left Sam was a playlist of songs, and a suicide note: For Sam—listen and you'll understand.

As he listens to song after song, Sam tries to face up to what happened the night Hayden killed himself. But it's only by taking out his earbuds and opening his eyes to the people around him that he will finally be able to piece together his best friend’s story. And maybe have a chance to change his own.

Part mystery, part love story, and part coming-of-age tale in the vein of Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now, Playlist for the Dead is an honest and gut-wrenching first novel about loss, rage, what it feels like to outgrow a friendship that's always defined you—and the struggle to redefine yourself. But above all, it's about finding hope when hope seems like the hardest thing to find.

WHY ARE THESE ONES SO HARD TO REVIEW?

So I'll get straight to the point.

I didn't love it.

I didn't hate it.

Again, I'm in middle ground territory and I freaking hate that, and the fact that I so wanted to love it, it's very music orientated as well, and come on, that's perfect for me, which makes me dislike it more because I didn't love it. But, that's not down to the story, or the message behind the story.

Problems, Problems, We All Have Problems...

I was tagged by the awesome Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight and Henna @ Howling for Books to do the Reader Problems Tag originally created by  About To Read.

1. You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?

I don't think 20,000 books would fit in my house. I must live in a library. Yes! Wishes do come true. Now, when I open my eyes will I be in Italy?

Easy. I don't. No, really. Obviously review books are in order of month, so I ask someone to pick a number from 1-(whatever number of books in that month) and read the book from the number they pick.  My own books I read when I feel like reading, though they're usually the newer ones I buy, instead of the ones I that have probably been on my shelf for a year that I said I would get to next time...and still haven't. Like Dangerous Girls, (yes, I know, I should've read it like yesterday Instead, I read it the other day.) and Ensnared that I was like GIVE ME two months ago, and now have read some reviews and I'm just...no.